NUS Law Students Beat Top
Schools in Europe at Inaugural International Moot
Competition

From left to right: NUS Law students Jeremiah
Lau, Lisa Tan, Benjamin Wong and law professor
Associate Professor Burton Ong

Singapore, 23 June 2015 – A National University of
Singapore Faculty of Law (NUS Law) team has won the
inaugural Herbert Smith Freehills Competition Law
Moot 2015. The competition was held at King’s
College London from 12 to 14 June 2015.

Final-year law students Jeremiah Lau, Benjamin Wong
and Lisa Tan beat teams from University of Helsinki,
Maastricht University, University of Leeds, as well
as the competition’s host university King's College
London, to reach the finals where they triumphed
over the team from University of Amsterdam to clinch
the champion title. The team also impressed the
international panel of judges, recording the highest
score among all 12 teams at the end of the
preliminary rounds. Lisa Tan also won the Best
Oralist prize, achieving a perfect score of 50 out
of 50, while Jeremiah Lau and Benjamin Wong followed
closely as joint runners-up.

Over two days, the NUS Law team fought through jet
lag and fatigue to demonstrate the depth of their
mastery of the legal subject matter against multiple
panels of judges. They were put through two
preliminary rounds, one quarter-final, one
semi-final, culminating in a gruelling hour-long
session in the Finals before a distinguished panel
of seven judges that included senior competition law
enforcement officials from both sides of the
Atlantic. In the crucial final round, they
successfully argued why businesses would be unfairly
penalised if the court did not accept the
Defendant’s submissions.

NUS Law Associate Professor Burton Ong, who coached
the trio, was immensely proud of their achievements.
He said, “Given that the moot problem was based on
European Competition Law, many would not have
expected an Asian team to outperform the ‘native’
teams. I am not surprised at all by the team’s
achievement - Jeremiah, Benjamin and Lisa are among
the best students I have encountered in my years as
a law tutor, and it was very satisfying to see them
demonstrate what I already knew they were capable of
to an international audience.”

In the lead up to the competition, the team had put
in a lot of hard work and research to prepare for
the written submissions for the competition, despite
having to study for their final examinations. After
their final examinations, they were immersed in
intensive preparation for the oral rounds of the
competition over two weeks, including practice
rounds with competition lawyers from Drew & Napier,
Baker & McKenzie, Rajah & Tann and the Competition
Commission of Singapore, which is also a corporate
sponsor of the team.

The students were delighted with their win in the
inaugural competition. Lisa shared her experience,
“This competition was a particularly gruelling one,
especially since we were still jet-lagged and
fatigued during the competition. We also had to rush
from the semi-finals to the finals in less than an
hour! On top of this, we were up against our
European opponents, who were eloquent and
charismatic graduate students with much greater
exposure to EU competition law. However, we were not
put off by the challenges, and were determined to do
our best.”

“The Finals lasted twice as long as the previous two
rounds, with a panel of judges including European
Commission officials, CMA officials, and academics.
The questions came fast and furious, but our team
managed to keep our unified stance. Thanks to
Associate Professor Eleanor Wong, Associate
Professor Lim Lei Theng and Lecturer Ms Elaine Chew
for sharing their oral advocacy skills, the
competition lawyers who provided invaluable feedback
in our practice rounds, and Associate Professor
Burton Ong for facilitating and organising this
journey with us,” Lisa added.

Lisa Tan joins a list of best oralists and speakers
from NUS Law. Others who received similar awards
this year include Jeremiah Lau for the D.M Harish
Moot Competition, and Kelvin Chong who was the first
Singaporean to receive the Martin Domke Award at the
22nd Willem C. Vis International Commercial
Arbitration Moot.